Is Less Content Better? 5 Steps to Simplify B2B Marketing Content

Over the holidays, I was on a cleaning rampage. I organized my basement and in the process, I got rid of boxes of books, and a minivan full of miscellany. It felt great!

Similarly, I think it's a good idea to occasionally "clean house" with your B2B content. Instead of only creating content, it's a good idea to take a step back and go through a similar exercise with your B2B content to determine:

What is essential to keep?

What needs to be updated and/or repurposed?

What is no longer needed?

Why is this necessary?

Lots of content does not equate to usefulness:I am reminded of a staggering stat I read in Jeff Ernst's eBook, The New Rules of Sales Enablement: Sales ignores 90% of the "stuff" that the folks at corporate give them. One of the main reasons is that there is simply too much info and they don't know where to look (your customers experience the same phenomenon).

I also continually come back to a quote from Malcolm Gladwell: "We have come to confuse information with understanding." Readers don't really want a laundry-list of resources, but rather they want it to be easily educated.

Your first impression counts - make it a good oneYou won't be doing yourself a favor if you have a bunch of half-hearted content. If your readers invest time in one or two pieces that are just "so-so," you've probably lost them for a long time.

Too much content can be difficult to manageIn a previous life as a marketing manager, I worked with a product line that was very mature that had a lot of content. And what did this mean for me? I had a lot to keep track of and update. My time could have been much better spent.

So, in the spirit of simplification and focus, here are my suggestions about how to approach content clean up.

Make a list of all of your contentScour your website and compile a list of all of your content, from webinars, white papers, customer success stories, sales presentations, etc.

Look at download and/or conversion ratesIt's useful to see how many people are downloading your content and, even more importantly, what is happening with the leads you collect. This way, you can see what is resonating with readers and what isn't (and apply these insights to future projects).

Determine what to keepIf you have content that is working well and generating the kind of downloads you want, great. Keep this and even think about promoting it more. You may even want to repackage this content in a way that can attract new users. Check out this recent post I wrote for some ideas on how to do this.

Decide what needs to be updated or removedYou will likely find that you have content that isn't quite meeting expectations, and it's important to figure out why. In general, there are two reasons your content isn't working:

It doesn't address the informational needs of your audience. Be honest with yourself: is it really something your ideal readers would read - and pass along? (Check out this post for some ideas on questions your content should answer.)

Depending on what the issues are, you may want to update the content or remove it from your website.

Organize remaining contentOnce you have an updated list of content you are going to keep and update, make sure it is organized in a way that your sales reps and clients can use it. In a future post, I'll give you some ideas on what to how to better organize your content.

What do you think? Do you think that a lot of content is useful, or is it worthwhile to simplify it? What other things do you consider when deciding if you want to keep something?

Comments

1 - Provide a cheat sheet. - Create a page that points to the most important pieces and make sure it's easily findable. You can create multiple cheat sheets for multiple audiences if necessary. This might help if you're in a situation where you can only trim down so much.

2 - Don't leave people hanging. - If this is online content, then work with your webmaster to make sure that every link that you just broke goes to either a comparable in topic but better piece of content or to an apology page with a new directory/search form.

This article makes some great points about content. Content is critical in B2B marketing - you simply can't rely on sales reps to educate prospects. Most businesses need both quantity and quality of fresh content. The trick is to keep it organized and easy to find. The other important aspect is to create content that is leveragable. In other words, create it once and use it in mulitiple media.

@Beth: Great idea about the cheat sheet, especially directed at different audiences.

@Christopher: I agree that organizing your content is key. I see so many companies with the huge list of content, and it's not user-friendly at all. Know of any good examples of how to organize content? I have some, but I am writing an upcoming post on this and would love to point to some ideas that work well.

@Robert; I like your thought about talking to your customers; they often have a useful insight. And, I absolutely agree that looking at conversion rates are ideal if you can do it.

Great article. However, before starting, I would chart out what I think I needed for the various personas and "buyer's journey." It's hard to be objective when you know what content you already have, but map out your marketing stages and needs and put in descriptions of what you need. Then, go through the steps with a firm mind.